Letters on voting, ISIS

Voting is also an obligation

We read a lot of political verbiage about people who tried and failed to complete the Kansas voter-registration requirements. But voting by citizens is not only a right and a privilege. It is also an obligation, which many seem to not understand.

There are more than 1.7 million registered voters in Kansas, but in most elections less than one-fourth of them fulfill their constitutional obligation to actually cast a ballot. I know from personal experience that a citizen who is registered can cast a ballot in every election if he tries, including the military overseas in peaceful or combat locations.

There exists in every state procedures for citizens to prove their citizenship. The simplest is getting a birth certificate. There are thousands of Kansans who stand by as volunteers to help get citizens registered. I suspect there are also many who have purposely refused to provide the legally required proof of citizenship so they can cry to the media.

If there is really a problem, it is in the number of registered voters who ignore their constitutional obligation and don’t vote. The noisy politicians should direct their rage at those, and help change the law that allows one to retain registration without casting a ballot for four major elections.

When a registered citizen fails to cast a valid ballot on any election, the registration should be deleted as being the obvious desire of the person.

CHARLES R. MANSFIELD

Wichita

Go after ISIS

These people are not a political movement, not a nation, not anything that can be negotiated with. They are cold-blooded killers who are basing their actions on a religious premise that does not exist anywhere but in their warped little minds.

We can’t compromise with people who behead, execute, stone to death, or torture their fellow man into submission.

We can argue all day long about whether we should have left Iraq alone and Saddam Hussein in place to subdue this kind of scum. He’s gone, and it’s our doing, and what’s left of Iraq is a nation torn by tribal and religious differences. President Obama wants Iraqis to behave like grown-ups so they can repel ISIS together, but that is a pipe dream. It’s up to us and the unbelievably brave Kurds to destroy this filth.

Put more intelligence on the ground and bomb them into the stone age they wish to create. Don’t ask permission, and forget collateral damage. Just do it.

KATHLEEN BUTLER

Wichita

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